Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Reading Order Checklist

Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex is the latest crossover between Guardians of the Galaxy, the X-Men and other of Marvel’s cosmic characters. Told in 13 parts, this galaxy sized story will see Star-Lord and a large cast of heroes attempt to save the universe from the terrible power that is the Black Vortex.

What is the Black Vortex? It’s an ancient artifact of immense power which allows those who use it to unlock their true potential through cosmic power. In the wrong hands this could see the end of the universe and billions of lives. No wonder villains Mr Knife and Thane, the son of Thanos, want it so bad.

Even though the events of this crossover have billions of lives at stake, it’s also a personal one for each character involved. In an interview with Marvel.com head writer Sam Humphries stated “…we’re grounding the story in the deeply personal conflict each character will go through just by encountering the Black Vortex.” This sounds rather promising as sometimes stories of this size lack character moments.

As crossovers can be confusing, especially when they involve many different titles, I have created the Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Reading Order Checklist. The is handy reading order shows which issues need to be read in what order, lists lead-up titles if you want to gain more insight into the background of the story and all of the release dates.

Lead Up Issues

The issues below contain the Black Vortex artifact in either flashback, mentioned or featured in person. They are good if you want a bit more context, but I say wouldn’t be compulsory reading as Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Alpha #1 is the official kick off of the crossover and will get readers up to speed if you miss anything leading up.

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Trevor Van As is the founder of How to Love Comics and has loved comics all his life. When he's not reading or talking about comics he can be found eating frozen yogurt and dancing like no one is watching.

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I just started reading the black vortex. I own almost all of your list except four of them which I’m going to try and buy soon. Thanks for the reading order it was very helpful. I also used your reading list for the full Axis series and Original Sin which I own. Thanks man and keep up the good work it helps us all out

I’m a guardians of the galaxy nut, I love all of that cosmic adventure stuff. This is an excellent reading list you put together as sometimes it can be confusing with all the tie-ins , this list makes it easy to keep track, I’m currently reading the legendary star-lord, guardians of the galaxyand gotg team up and Black vortex, I haven’t been collecting comic books that long and as I was reading the legendary star-lord I realize I was missing part of the story, so thanks a lot for putting together this list.